Trusting God is Essential

As a kid I remember watching Looney Tunes and there was one episode in particular where an older Indian walked across hot coals, cool as a cucumber while everyone watched in amazement.  Soon a young brave comes up and tries to do the same.  When he gets off the coal bed, his feet are pulsating red-hot and smoking.  

Just like the young brave, all too often we try to handle the tough situations ourselves instead of giving them to God.  I know that I am guilty of this all the time.  As soon as something gets a little tough I say, “I’ve got this!”  When I should be saying, “God I know you have a plan and that everything happens for a reason please help me to see why this is happening and help me to gain the knowledge to not let it happen again”

Are you guilty of this?

If you are you’re not alone, trust me!

Trusting in God no matter the situation can be tough but it is essential for our wellbeing.  We are placed in tough situations so we can learn and grow.  God wants us to lean on him for everything every day.  He wants us to trust that he has everything under control.  He needs us to know that we are here to serve him and help others find him throughout our lives.  He allows us to walk through the fire we create so that we can know he here for us.  He asks us to walk through the raging river trusting that we will not be swept away before we ever touch the water.  God is telling us that he has our back, it is our duty to ensure that we trust him fully. 

What can you do to trust in God even more?  When was the last time you came to God asking for his help to get you out of the situation you created?  When was the last time you thanked God for allowing you to work through the situation?

When I think about silence and faith, I think about Daniel from the old testament.  Can you imagine for how long those 12 hours were that he spent in the lions den? Ill bet for all of the people who threw him into the den that evening was filled with laughter, food and went by very quickly.  For Daniel it must have felt like an eternity though.  Praying earnestly talking to God’s angles throughout the evening.  That must have felt as though it was a lifetime.  Also look at the king.  Daniel was more than just an advisor he was a friend.  How did long was that night for the king?  The thing about hard times is that when we are in the middle of them they seem like an eternity.  When in reality they are not much more than a blink of an eye of our life. 

God knows that we can endure those times, as long as we trust in him. 

God today we come to you today to say thank you!  Thank you for having our backs no matter how bad of a decision we might make.  Thank you for allowing us to walk through the fire so that we might learn from those times. Thank you for not allowing the flames to devour us during those lessons.   God we pray that you allow us to learn from those lessons, help us not to make the same mistakes again.  Help us to lean on you through both our great times and our harder times.  Let us see that satin is at the door and help us to hold the door closed and not let him in!  God we know that you have a plan for our lives, we pray that you help us to be the best person we can be every day.  We pray that you help us make those tough decisions and help us to know that you are there to support us.  Thank you for giving us people to learn from, especially those in your word.  Thank you for being there for us no matter what!

Amen

Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5 NIV

This scripture really touched my heart.  How often when things start to get tough and we start to suffer do we turn to God and say, “What did I do to deserve this” or “I really tried to listen to you, but I feel that I didn’t get the point.”  So often, we turn to God when times are tough to ask him for guidance and to take away our suffering.  The way I take these verses are that it is only through suffering that we can learn perseverance, gain our true charter, and hope so big that we can’t help but be happy.

Wow, that was awesome!

Let’s break down these verses even more.  What is perseverance?  I grew up in the grange where they always prayed for perseverance.  To me perseverance is when you don’t give up.  Angela Duckworth would call it “Grit.”  The ability to stick with something even when things do go as easily as expected.  Faith requires perseverance, being an employee requires perseverance, being the leader requires perseverance, being a parent requires perseverance.  I think you get the point, life requires that we have perseverance, or grit.  Never giving up is huge.  I have been listening regularly to the podcast, “Born to Impact.”  These guys are amazing and constantly talk about what it means to have perseverance.  They use the analogy of a person who hits a rock 99 times and it never breaks, then he swings the 100^th time and the rock breaks open and is full of amazing beauty.  If you don’t have perseverance and gave up at swing 99, you would have never found the true treasure. 

Let’s move on to character.  I consider character to be how we act, and react to every situation that God places in our lives.  Our character is formed by the events that happen for us.  The way we act on those situations shows our true character.  Ill bet that we have been in a situation where our boss was not a a nice guy.  Maybe we gave him a reason not to be nice to us, maybe we didn’t.  the fact is that we don’t like our current situation.  We have the option to allow our character to be one who goes around talking about them behind their backs, or we can bring it up to them and ask how we can fix the situation.  The point here is that our character is what makes the difference.  How is our character formed?  By the situations, God has led us through and our actions during those times.  Character is something that can change over time in everyone.  We have the ability to grow into the person we are truly supposed to be.

Hope!  How would you describe hope?  To me Hope is the ability to have faith that things will turn out great.  Even in those situations where we KNOW beyond any doubt that it will never work out, having faith that it will work out.  Hope is the ability to see the good in others when no one else does.  Hope is the light of the world.  Hope believes that humanity will take the righteous actions.  Hope can be anything you want it to be as long as you believe in it.  Hope is knowing that no matter what God has my life and yours under control.  All we have to do is sit back, work like heck, and trust that God is guiding the ship in the direction he needs it to go. 

The last part of these verses are the hardest for me.  They say that it is only through suffering that we can gain all of these things.  Why are we so, for lack of better words, dumb, that we have to suffer to gain perspective in this?  God knows our path, he knows us before we are even born, he knows us better than we know ourselves.

God today we come to you to just say, THANK YOU!  Thank you for giving us the ability to change, thank you for giving us perseverance that’s changes our charter and gives us hope.  Thank you for everything that you do and everywhere that you guide us to be.  God I pray that you help these words to touch someone’s heart and allow them to see Jesus in them.  God I pray that you help us to give all glory for everything to you.  God thank you for allowing us to suffer so that we may gain all of these awesome traits.  Thank you.

Amen

God Never Gives up on You!

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

WOW those are some pretty powerful words.  Jesus speaks about how a tree can only bear good fruit or bad fruit.  It can’t bear both.  When he talking about this he wasn’t talking about a real tree he was speaking about people.  When someone has evil in their heart they don’t have the ability to allow God into their hearts.  It happens to all of us at times.  There have been times in my life where I have been overcome with jealousy, or envy, or just wanted to make more money.  I’m not proud of those times and I’m definitely not bragging about them either.

Can you think of any of those times in your life? Times where you didn’t bear good fruit. 

Even through those hard times did God give up on you when you lost your way?  NO!  He never gives up on us.  He asks that we don’t give up on other or ourselves either.  That’s part being a person that bears “good fruit”, not giving up.  We can’t give up because someone hurts us.  We continue to forgive them and in the end it makes us better fruit. 

Last week we talked about how God has a plan for all of us, and how he knew us before were ever born.  I believe that God also knows when we will stumble.  He uses that as a way to help us know that he is in control of everything.  God wants all of his children to bear good fruit.  Think back to when you were a child (I still am according my wife, lol).  Do you remember having to learn a lesson the hard way?  Oh man do I ever.  I had to learn lots lessons the hard way.  There were definitely times where I did not bear good fruit for God.  Does that mean that I can’t bear good fruit now?  No it doesn’t.  Because God knew before I was born that I would mistakes, just like you, just like your neighbor, just like the rest of the world.  He knew that we would struggle.  That’s why God sent his son for us, to atone for our sins. 

God we would like to thank you today for never giving up on us. Like a farmer never gives up on his crops, or parents never give up on their children.  We thank you for taking time to help us bear good fruits.  We know that life can be tough, you never said that it would be easy.  We know that you are here for us and that you help us when we need it.  God Thank you for the opportunities that you give us to share our good fruits.  We pray that you would help us to realize when we are starting to get “rotten” before it’s too late.  God we pray that you help us to share love, give joy to others, seek peace in conflicting times, show kindness when we are struggling, be good to others, always be faithful to you, have genital hands and gentle words, and above all else have self-control in every situation.  We thank you for never giving up on us.

Amen